Bump Stock Ban Makes Gains, Though Senate Remains Question

State lawmakers in Albany are making a push to ban the possession and sale of devices like bump stocks that can allow a semi-automatic weapon to fire like an automatic rifle.

“I believe we need to be as vigilant as we can possibly be to try to lack down, latch down, every weakness in the law that we can possibly do,” said Assemblywoman Pat Fahy, an Albany Democrat who introduced a version of the bill this week.

Bills to ban bump stocks were introduced this week after a gunman in Las Vegas is believed to have used the device to fire into a crowd at a concert, killing 58 people.

“I think there is an appetite because people feel vulnerable, my constituents feel vulnerable,” said Sen. Brad Hoylman, who carries a similar measure along with fellow Democratic Sen. John Brooks.

But there’s also some confusion over the legal status of bump stocks. Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday incorrectly said the devices were banned in the SAFE Act.

“We did that,” Cuomo told reporters in Cortland. “New York led the way and we frankly led the way before this whole rash of mass murders going on nationwide.”

The claim the SAFE Act bans bump stocks and other similar devices has also been made by the Independent Democratic Conference in the Senate. But Cuomo misspoke on Friday.

The State Police this week pointed to a law that bans the attachment of devices that mimic automatic fire on semi-automatic weapons.

“Under a section of state law that pre-dates the SAFE Act,” said spokesman Beau Duffy, “attaching a bump stock to a semi-automatic weapon would be illegal.”

The possession or sale of bump stocks is legal, says Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office.

“The legislation that I and Senator Brooks have introduced would ban them completely and make it a felony to actually have one, for example, in the truck of your car,” Hoylman said.

Fahy’s bill, meanwhile, has the support of a Republican in the state Senate, Andrew Lanza of Staten Island.

“I think it’s a breakthrough here that the bill I’ve introduced is a bipartisan one,” she said.

The politics of gun control in the state Legislature, however, are tricky.

The SAFE Act’s passage angered gun owners in New York and several Republicans from upstate districts elected in recent years have vowed to repeal the measure.

It’s not clear if Republicans in the Senate would want to vote on another gun control bill. A Senate GOP spokesman did not return calls seeking comment, nor did the New York State Rifle And Pistol Association.